I’ve become *that* old person

by Janie Jones

I bought a sub sandwich Wednesday at the campus sub shop. It came to $7.15. I handed the college girl at the register a $10 bill, then dug through my wallet for some change. But she cashed out the sale before I came up with the 15 cents, so when I held out the change she looked surprised and embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I already finished the sale.”

“But I have the exact change, you just have to give me three dollars back.”

“I can’t do that. I already typed in $10 and finished the sale.”

“Oh, so you can’t do the math.”

“It’s just that if you want to give me $10.15, I’d have to void the sale and re-do it.”

“But, I have exact change. Just do the math, I get $3 back. It works out exactly the same.”

“I’m sorry, though. I already finished the sale. And, it’s just a hassle to re-do it to figure out the new change.”

“But it’s just the exact change. If you give me three dollars, it works out exactly the same. It’s just a bit of math.”

Now, math isn’t my favorite subject either. But, it’s not like I gave her something weird, like $12.40 so I could get a $5 bill and a quarter back. It was just $10.15, even I can quickly make the change for that.

So I laughed and said to forget about it, and I took the $2.85 the cash register told her to give me.